


The Rogers Movement

by Shrewreadings



Series: Badger-Verse [5]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Humor, M/M, Mentoring Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-28
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:38:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shrewreadings/pseuds/Shrewreadings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when you assign Steve Rogers to do community service to amend for some socially responsible graffiti?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Steam Vents & Geysers & Dodge, Oh My!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [copperbadge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/gifts).



> There is no question that [SciFiGrl47's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/scifigrl47/pseuds/scifigrl47) awesome work [Things Unseen (That Are Captured on Film)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/536146) was an inspiration for the kids in 8-B. I only wish I had written this half as well as what she's done. 
> 
> I blame the moustache, gravy & tiger comments on [Copperbadge](http://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge), and since it's his fault, he can have it.

**Monday morning, SHIELD HQ, Legal department's conference room.**

 

"Right, ADA Moore's sent a list of suggested assignments over." Caroline put the print-out on the table, marked up in green ink. "Let's start with the ones that are _right_ out. One, the SICF."

 

" _Definitely_ not." Tony said. "The entire staff would fall over from fanboying him."

 

"Agreed," Clint said. "The program would go to pieces. Also, hasn't he already _been_ to boot at Lakeview?"

 

"Lehigh." Steve answered. "SICF?"

 

"Shock incarceration correctional facility. Boot camp for juvenile delinquents." Caroline explained. "I have no earthly idea what it's doing on the list of options, but it is off." She drew a line through entry.  "Next, cooking for meals on wheels."

 

"No," said Steve.

 

"Hell, no." Added Natasha. "Not unless they do breakfast."

 

"If Steve cooks for meals on wheels, then the housebound are likely to get food poisoning." Clint said, "And a lot of them won't be able to get help before the salmonella gets too bad."

 

"I don't know, I have a lot of friends at the CDC I haven't seen for a while," Bruce said thoughtfully. "And New York does always get foodborne's dream team…"

 

"Bruce, the last time the CDC sent someone up here to talk to you, it was about the possibility that one of your former grad students had managed to lose track of a colony of subcellular radioactive boron fusions." Tony said, sounding tired. "It was almost as bad as the hallucinogenic air fresheners from week before last."

 

"No it wasn't," Bruce said. "Boron fusions never caused anyone to believe they were being attacked by armies of garden gnomes."

 

"Am I alone in drawing the conclusion that there's a possibility that _radioactive_ boron fusions have caused delusions of garden gnome invasions?" Clint asked.

 

"No." Steve said darkly.

 

"I think we can eliminate cooking for meals on wheels from the list." Caroline said. "Book-keeping for the ASPCA."

 

"I can't even balance my checkbook." Steve answered. "It's weird. I'm okay with math. Calculate a trajectory? Fine. Plot a course? Fine. Use a sextant? Fine. Checkbook? Not fine."

 

"Which is why I sent you to Dale." Tony said. "Who is, I admit, the smartest financial accountant I have ever met."

 

"And judging by the tone of his last letter, also expecting you in Wyoming for Christmas." Caroline commented, drawing a line through 'ASPCA.'

 

"Wait, Wyoming?" Steve turning his head to stare at Tony. "I thought Dale was English."

 

"He is. Moved out there a few years back." Tony replied.

 

"Absolutely _gorgeous_ Kiwi boyfriend he's got." Natasha said dreamily. "Shame."

 

"I'm sold. And sorry I'm not invited." Caroline said. "Next, teaching technology to novices, especially seniors."

 

"There're _classes_ to teach people that stuff?" Steve's head snapped back to Caroline. He jerked a thumb at Tony. "You mean I've been putting up with his gobbledygook for months when I could have gotten someone to explain it to me in English?"

 

"Steve, I've seen you using technology," Caroline said. "You're perfectly comfortable with computers and mobiles. Hell, you showed me 'Take the A-Train' last week. Why would you want a class that basically says 'this is a mouse, you use it like this?'"

 

"'Take the A-Train?'" Bruce asked.

 

"An app to tell you what the current delays are in the public transportation system, GPS tied to your current location." Caroline explained. "You open it in DC, it tells you whether the green line is running; you open it here, you get to know whether you should…"

 

"Take the A-Train. Clever." Bruce said.

 

" _NOW_ I'm perfectly comfortable with tech stuff." Steve said. "Back in 2011? Not nearly. I kept trying to tap the tablet from behind."

 

"Erk. Okay, so not teaching tech." Caroline turned the page.

 

Natasha leaned over Caroline's shoulder and tapped an entry. "Phil has vetoed the maintenance on Hart's Island on grounds of not causing Dr. Chapman in psych to go screeching into the night about hours and hours wasted on keeping us sane."

  
"Hart's Island?" Clint asked.

 

"Potter's Field." Caroline translated. Steve flinched. "Too many ghosts." She suspected one of them would be Steve's mother, and, having a specter tied to his bomber jacket, would like to spare Steve the experience of walking into his closet and coming out in his mother's childhood bedroom. Caroline scratched the entry off the list, and said, "and that's it for the 'absolutely not.' This brings us to the 'possibles.' The early reading program in the Bronx."

 

"Early reading?" Steve asked.

 

"Reading to kids, usually pre-school through elementary." Clint explained. "Older kids, the idea is to get them to read to you: younger kids, you read to them. You'll like it, they're awesome up at Huntswell. I think there's a 'draw a picture about the story' program that goes with it, isn't there?"

 

"There is." Caroline answered.

 

Steve smiled. "That actually sounds… fun."

 

"I'll warn the librarians to prepare for the swarms of un-partnered parents." Caroline smiled and put a check-mark by the entry. "Next on 'maybe.'" She looked at Steve. "The Community Trust wants someone to help with their Veteran's Fund clothing drive: organizing donations they've gotten and then helping run operations on day of distribution."

 

"Why's that on 'maybe?'" Steve asked. "I've done those before."

 

Caroline shrugged a little. "During the War, with rationing, they were geared more toward civilian clothing swaps than this kind of thing. And you weren't a combat veteran then."

 

Steve sat back, crossed his arms across his chest, "so what you're saying is that this is going to have a semblance of efficiency and accomplish its actual goal?"

 

"Female combat veterans, Steve." Natasha said.

 

"Homeless veterans, male and female." Clint added. "From all the wars from Afghanistan back through World War II."

 

Steve's jaw locked, his chin dropping a little. He looked even more mulish than he had a minute ago.

 

Bruce, as the resident expert on 'things that might cause you to go Green,' spoke up, his voice quiet and gentle. "There are two levels of concern. First, we don't want this to set off unresolved combat stress for you." Steve's brows furrowed, and he sighed, conceding Bruce's point. Bruce went on, "Second, I was worried that seeing you might trigger some of the older vets, especially those who served in World War II or Korea." He sat forward, wrapped his hands around his tea mug.  "It's not something we want to force on anyone, and Caroline and I thought it was important that it be presented as a 'maybe,' instead of a 'no problem,' like picking up litter in parks."

 

"We thought that taking for granted that you wouldn't have issues or concerns about something that's so deeply personal was probably a bad idea." Caroline said, looking at Tony with an eyebrow raised. 

 

He flipped her off. "Still a horrible suit."  On the Monday before the DA's meeting, Caroline had dropped her formal suit at the SHIELD cleaners. When she'd gone to pick it up at her coffee break that morning, it had mysteriously disappeared – and Natasha, Steve and Pepper Potts had been waiting to ambush her at the door. She had spent the rest of the day held hostage in a couturier's salon.

 

Caroline had not previously been aware that humans could blush so hard in embarrassment that they were functionally purple – or that she was one of them. She'd also never been present at and the subject of discussion with phrases like 'foundation garments,' and 'proper utilization of assets.' She certainly never thought that she'd hear Steve Rogers tell a modiste to 'use her editing eye.'

 

"Still not your beck and call girl, Stark."  She turned back to Steve. "I was worried you might connect it to the Bonus Army."

 

Steve shook his head. "I was a kid when that happened.  During the war I was in Europe, so I missed MacArthur.  I managed to miss Patton in Italy – probably because I was still with the USO – and then when we got the Howling Commandos out, I was under Phillips, and he was under Eisenhower, and Eisenhower…"

 

"…Thought MacArthur was being an idiot." Caroline finished.

 

"MacArthur _was_ being an idiot." Steve replied. "An opinion that I mostly kept to myself.  Will such restraint be necessary with this project?"

 

"Nope." Tony said. "Especially with Bruce helping over in the clinic area of the event, Natasha over in the interviewing practice section, me doing a seminar on re-directing engineering skills to the civilian market, and Clint and Thor over with the kids' area."

 

Steve looked at Caroline. "What, you're not coming, too?"

 

"Leonie Weaver and I have been volunteering for their legal aid section for years." Caroline answered. "The Veteran's Fund folks run a good outfit, so this is a 'karma bank balance' event. And as a bonus, it counts towards the mandatory 40 hours of _pro bono_ / community legal aid you have to do per year to keep a New York Bar license."

 

"Ah." Steve nodded. "Okay, so that's two. How many hours do I have available?"

 

"90," Caroline answered, "over the course of the next 18 months. Some of it's compulsory – the graffiti removal project on page three, for example.  That's on a Friday: there's a public art project that's set to start on Saturday I thought you'd enjoy."

 

"And the electronics recycling drive that the Maria Stark Foundation's put together," Tony said.  "You'd be shocked how many perfectly good laptops just get pitched."

 

"The way people treat most stuff as disposable kind of shocks me in general, Tony.  Park clean up?" Steve asked, looking at the next project under 'Stark Foundation Drive' on page three.

 

"Usual sort of thing. Pick up trash, dog waste, weed some, plant some, try to make sure the little twerps sent over for grass possession don't try to plant marijuana or put the bulbs in patterns spelling out rude messages." Clint said.

 

"I can't tell a dandelion from a daylily." Steve warned.

 

"Oh, that one's easy. Daylilies are bulbs." Natasha said automatically. Everyone turned to look at her. "What? I like plants. Especially perennials."

 

"Definitely something I never expected to learn in my job." Caroline muttered. "The ASPCA wants someone to help socialize candidate animals: hanging out with cats, walking dogs."

 

"Fine."

 

"And, I think, finally, there's some after-school programs that want someone to help with homework mentoring."

 

"Also fine." Steve said.

 

"And also likely to get the whole lot of us in." Clint said. "How do they feel about _ad hoc_ parkour programs?"

 

"Probably like their insurance doesn't cover it." Caroline answered. "And that's it for _this_ element of this continuing saga. Up next," she tapped the StarkPlayer to send a presentation to the whiteboard, "this week's endorsement proposals. Dodge."

 

"What about Dodge?" Clint asked.

 

"They're planning the 2013 Avenger marketing campaign." Caroline said.

 

The chorus of 'No' was slightly deafening.

 

"Even I can see that that thing is more hideous than a Ford Flex." Bruce said. "And it takes _work_ to come up with something that I notice is ugly."

 

"It's poorly designed, underpowered – I mean, really, a four-cylinder? For a four-door? – badly made and its reliability falls somewhere below a political party's." Tony said.

 

"I can't fit in it." Steve said.

 

"If I read the proposal correctly, they based it off the Rushman ID's modeling experience." Natasha said. "No. That was bullshit."

 

"And that, too, was poorly designed, underpowered and badly made." Clint said. "We could suggest they try the lighting guy Natasha threw off the eighth floor? His reliability about matches theirs…"

 

"I'll just say 'thanks but no thanks,' shall I?" Caroline said.  "Next, we have…"

 

 

*~*~*

 

**Wendesday Afternoon, South Bronx Community Center After-School Program**

 

"I hate group projects." Evetta sat down in the community center classroom and dropped her backpack on the floor with a thud, her lower lip stuck out in a sulk.

 

"I hate group projects that are dumb." Daniel answered, slouching and scratching at his neck under his Angry Birds t-shirt where a zit was trying to form. "Who does papier-mâché shit in the 21st century?"

 

"Stupid teachers who think we need to do stuff 'with all our senses.'" Roberto answered, fidgeting with the zip to his hoodie. "Which is, like you said, dumb."

 

" _AND_ it's the first of the month, so we have some new asshole wanting to 'mentor the underprivileged.'" Daniel made a face. "Or sentenced to be a bad example."

 

"I thought that's why we had you," Roberto said.

 

Daniel flipped Roberto off.

 

"This week's manager's specials." Luisa muttered. "In the dollar bin by the bodega door."  She had her elbows on the table, head in her hands, her baggy t-shirt hanging off her body and her hair hanging down and hiding her face.

 

"Yes, well, I'm sure you'll all survive." Julia Razo said from the door, next to two men, one short and dark haired, a goatee on his chin, one tall, blond, clean-cut and All-American. Short was carrying a briefcase; tall a backpack. Julia continued, "You have been surviving for the last two years, and I'm pretty sure you will this month. Group 8-B, this is Steve and Tony." Group 8-B looked at the pair and as one concluded that the pair were at the community center as part of a sentence for drug possession, probably cocaine. "Steve, Tony, Group 8-B: Luisa Cavazos, Daniel Jones, Evetta Armendáriz, and Roberto Escamilla. You guys," the program director said to the teens, " _behave_.  Behave _well_ , even, or your mothers – and grandmothers, Mr. Jones – _will_ be hearing from me. Gentlemen," she said back to the new mentors, "good luck."

 

"Thanks, Ms. Razo." Clean-Cut said. He stepped into the classroom followed by the shorter man. He set his backpack down, pulled out a chair, turned it around, and straddled it. "Hi, I'm Steve."

 

"Tony." The other guy left his briefcase by the door before coming over to the table.  He pulled a chair out and slouched into the molded plastic and metal torture device the way Daniel had, but made it look stylish.  "Who's who?"

 

The middle-schoolers introduced themselves. "And it sounds like you also go to school together, as well as this program?" Steve asked.

 

"Yeah. It's a whole…" Roberto waved his hand. "Thing."

 

"Twenty of us started in the beginning of 6th grade." Luisa said, still looking at the table.

 

"They called it a coherent." Daniel said.

 

Steve tilted his head at the young black kid, and asked, "Cohort?"

 

"Yeah. And we're the only ones left." Daniel said. "Everyone else stopped coming."

 

"But not you guys." Tony said.

 

"There's A/C." Evetta said.

 

"And internet." Roberto added.

 

Steve nodded. "Okay. So, tell us about this project of yours."

 

The project, it turned out, was an integrated project about the historic and scientific formation of Yellowstone National Park.

 

"It's this stupid idea that if they team-teach us history and science, we're not going to drop out." Luisa said.

 

"How's that working out?" Tony said, looking at their plan for the models of geothermal features. Julia Razo had told them that the other part of the idea of team-teaching was to give the teachers built-in professional support in the hopes that the faculty would actually last longer than a semester.

 

"Not very good." She answered.

 

"Mmm. Okay, so you want at least one each of geyser, fumaroles, hot spring, mud pot and travertine terrace.  What's the plan for getting the material for the travertine?"

 

"There's a building going co-op between here and home." Evetta said. "They're putting travertine into the kitchen and bathrooms."

 

"And you know that because…?" Tony asked.

 

"'Cause they leave the packages in dumpsters on the street." Evetta answered. "And chips and scraps and stuff."

 

Tony nodded. "Good deal."

 

Steve and the boys were working on the human history side of the project, putting together dossiers on local Native American tribes, Ferdinand Hayden, Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Conrad Wirth.

 

"Okay, that looks good. What are you going to say about the CCC?" Steve asked.

 

"The what?" Roberto asked.

 

"CCC." Steve repeated, looking slowly from Roberto to Daniel.

 

"Is that like… some National Park version of the Klan?" Daniel asked.

 

Steve's eyebrows climbed through his hairline. "No," he said, carefully, "it wasn't."  He looked over at the brightly decorated wall where a table had a computer on it.  "Is that connected to the internet?" He stood up from their table and crossed the room, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum.

 

"Yeah," Roberto answered.

 

"Excellent."  Steve looked at the power button to check the computer was on, and tapped the mouse to wake the computer. He opened Firefox and Googled CCC. "The Civilian Conservation Corps ran from 1933 to 1941. The government hired about three million single guys who couldn't find jobs and packed them out to the middle of nowhere to do things like plant trees, put up buildings in parks, and build roads."

 

Roberto's dark eyes radiated disbelief. "You've got to be shi…" Steve fixed him with a stern look and despite himself, Roberto found himself changing his language, "…kidding me."

 

"Nope."

 

Daniel looked at the Wikipedia entry. "No way. Government doesn't hire unemployed people."

 

"Hired them, fed them, housed them, gave them clothes, and a paycheck. Made them send money home, too. First job most of them had?" Steve grinned. "Building their own barracks. You haven't studied the Depression in school?"

 

Daniel shrugged. "We're supposed to get it next quarter."

 

"If we can get Ms. Reiner to stop talking about the Triangle Tammany Hall fire." Roberto said, grumpily.

 

"Which one?" Steve asked.

 

"Huh?" Roberto replied.

 

Steve smiled. "Two separate things. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire happened in 1911. It's why they don't chain fire doors shut."

 

"Sure they do." Daniel said. "How else are you gonna keep the gangbangers out of the school?"

 

He missed how Steve's eyes narrowed. "Okay – it was one of the reasons you two are in school, and not working in steel mills. Tammany Hall was a political mafia."

 

"Oh." Roberto said. "And the Depression came after both, right?"

 

"Right." Steve said, "and was pretty scary."

 

*~*~*

 

"Not _nearly_ as scary as how little they're learning about history." Steve fumed on the way home. "How the hell are they going to, I don't know, _not_ get us into another world war or another depression if they don't know what happened the last time?"

 

Tony steered the car on to the RFK bridge. "They aren't."

 

"Now I'm really worried: you've got faith in human nature?"

 

"Nope. I mean they won't _not_ get us into another war. Part of why I'm privatizing world peace, remember? And they're not going to keep us out of another Depression, either."  Tony slowed as traffic built up, and looked over at Steve. "You missed the first three years of the financial crisis. And a lot of what got us into it was the same stuff that got us into the Depression."  Tony's face twisted up at the corner. "Human nature, Steve. Can't beat it for 'stupid.'  Is it any comfort to know that their math skills are just as lousy?"

 

"No." Steve said blackly.  "But go ahead and rant, I can see you holding yourself back."

 

Tony came to a halt when they got on the FDR as traffic piled up. "It was all I could do to not yank the calculator out of their hands when they were figuring out how much rock they'd need for their travertine terrace.  I actually _did_ take the calculator away when they started using it for single digit multiplication." They inched forward. "On the other hand…" Tony looked at Steve. "You realize this means we don't have to _un_ -teach them anything." His eyes danced mischievously. "Like the importance of checking your materials for their ability to stand up to prolonged heat exposure."

 

Steve nodded a little. "And that the map is not the territory."

 

"The natural supremacy of the New York Rangers."

 

"And how it is a moral imperative to support the Mets."

 

"And, naturally, the inborn evil that is found in that most dangerous of creatures," Tony concluded.

 

"Clowns." Steve and Tony said together.

 

*~*~*

 

Two weeks later, Roberto looked at the model landscape of the geothermal features covering the main table, then at Tony.  "You sure this is going to work? Those two," he pointed back and forth at the geyser and the mud pot "look kind of close together.

 

Tony tilted his head and shrugged. "Daniel's design. Luisa's math. I just did the welding parts."

 

"So long as it's not mine," Daniel muttered.

 

"You're 13, they won't let you weld in here until you're 18." Tony retorted.

 

"I meant so long as it's not my math."

 

Evetta looked at Daniel and said, "Your math design was fine. The numbers just messed it up."

 

"Well, then, that's just ducky." Daniel snapped.

 

Steve said sharply, "Hey. We talked about this. No putting yourself down in here."

 

Daniel waved. "Yeah, sorry."

 

"Draw a card." Steve Capped at Daniel, pointing at the 'chance' deck sitting in the middle of the supplies table that all participants drew from when the team rules were broken.

 

Daniel drew. "Da..." Steve cleared his throat. "Drat. Floor."

 

Tony smiled, and wrote Daniel's name next to 'sweeping' on the whiteboard for the day.  "Luisa, we loaded for bear?"

 

"Buffalo, too." Luisa said, putting the turkey baster back into the bottle of vinegar.

 

"Then let's fire it up." Roberto said.

 

"Glasses, people." Tony said, putting his own safety glasses on.  Everyone came over to his side of the classroom, and he elbowed Steve. "Steve. Glasses."

 

Steve sighed, and put his glasses on.

 

"Hey, how come he doesn't have to draw a card?"  Daniel asked.

 

"'Cause he's a grown-up." Roberto said.

 

"And because the deck's in the hazard zone." Tony added. "Evetta, power on in 3... 2... 1..."

 

Evetta turned the switch on the control panel on and looked at the display.

 

The hot spring started burbling immediately, bubbling away in its artificial pond.  The pump at the travertine terrace clicked on and started spilling the weak vinegar-water mixture over the rocks. Little white flecks started to appear on the terrace where the water had flowed.

 

An arm under the crack in the landscape labeled 'fumarole' scissored tongs covered in cheesecloth that was smeared with 'Mystic Smoke.' When the tongs separated, smoke started drifting up through the crack. The arm cranked slowly, and a minute or so later, the scissoring repeated itself.

 

This left the geyser and the mud pot.

 

Evetta looked at the hole for the geyser and said, "it's not erupting." Her lower lip caught in her teeth, and she started to reach for the seltzer bottle donated by Tony from the bar in the second velvet living room (green) for the project.

 

Tony caught her hand. "Hang on. It's not supposed to go off for another 15 seconds."

 

Evetta looked at him, dubious. "You sure?"

 

"Luisa, am I sure?" Tony asked.

 

"We're at a 1/20th scale: 3 minutes is 1 hour's worth of events. Old Faithful goes off every 35 to 120 minutes. So that's 1.75 minutes for us, or in six, five, four, three, two…"

 

The clamp controlling the seltzer bottle closed, and 'Old Faithful' erupted.

 

"Awesome." Daniel said, enraptured.

 

"Is it awesome that it's landing in the mud pot?" Steve asked, looking at the drops of seltzer water landing in the basin where the 'mud' (really, gravy with flour and red food coloring mixed into it to make it a slightly stiffer, orange substance) is starting to bubble with the heating element underneath it warming up.

 

"Should be." Daniel said. "When we tried mixing the gravy and seltzer cold nothing happened…"

 

"And when you tried it hot?" Steve asked.

 

None of the kids from 8-B answered. Steve looked at Tony to see if there was anything to actually worry about. Tony smiled and very slightly shook his head, tipping it back toward the 'safety shield' they'd rigged from a room divider.

 

"Okay, this might be a good time for everyone to get behind the cubicle wall." Steve said, herding Daniel and Luisa back towards the other end of the classroom.

 

"Go on, guys, I got this." Tony said, stepping back some, but staying in eye-shot of the landscape. Evetta and Roberto moved back to join Steve and the others.

 

The seltzer combined with the gravy, making the substance more liquid. The immersion water heater kept heating the mud, which then bubbled over.

 

It oozed into the geyser.

 

The geyser went off, spurting into the air.

 

It landed, completely covering Tony Stark's face in orange gravy-seltzer.

 

Tony killed the power, and the bubbling stopped. He pulled the now orange-coated safety glasses off and turned around to reassure the group behind the cubicle wall that came about halfway up Steve's chest.  The sight that greeted him made him burst into laughter.

 

Steve had pushed the kids back out of the way when the sludge went airborne, but he hadn't escaped the eruption's wrath. He, too, was covered in orange slush, streaked in black where his paint-coated fingers had pushed the glasses up off his nose to the top of his face.

 

"Okay, I'm the one called 'Tony.' Why are you the one who looks like a cartoon on a cereal box?" A wide grin splitting his face, Tony went over to the sink counter on the side of the room and tossed a roll of paper towels at Steve.

 

"Blow it out your moustache, Stark." Steve said, grinning back and starting to mop up. Luisa and Evetta headed for the sink, trigger bottle of soap and water, and sponges.  Steve handed Evetta the paper towel roll as she passed.

 

Daniel's eyes were wide, brows furrowed, and his lips drew tight. "Tony, I'm so sorry.  Steve…"

 

"Don't worry about it, kid," Tony said, wiping his forehead. "It'll wash off."

 

"But your shirts… I'll buy you new ones. I promise."  Daniel looked at Tony's vintage Clash t-shirt, and Steve's button-down and t-shirt combination. He swallowed.

 

"Tony's is vintage, moron." Roberto said.

 

"Hey," Tony said.

 

"You're not going to be able to just pick up another at K-Mart." Roberto finished.

 

"Hey!" Tony said, louder and more sharply. "One, accidents happen. It's science. If you're not getting messy, you're not doing it right. Two, language, grab a card, sit down, you're done for now." He snapped, and jerked his thumb at the deck of 'chance' cards (now also orange gravy spattered).

 

"But…"

 

"Go." Tony interrupted. "Sit. I'll tell you when you're finished."

 

Daniel had taken advantage of the distraction to bolt out of the classroom. The door slammed behind him.

 

Luisa winced.  Tony sighed, and looked at Steve. "I've got this. Go after him before he gets out of the building."

 

"You sure?"

 

"Positive. Go get 'im, Tiger."

 

Steve glared at Tony, but nodded and chased after Daniel.

 

*~*~*

 

Ms. Rzo, when Tony and Steve had first met her, had explained that 8-B had a set of issues facing them that was pretty typical for kids in the Bronx. Daniel lived with his grandmother: his mother had abandoned him, and his father was in jail. Of the four remaining students, only Luisa had both parents in residence, and they worked shifts around the clock that meant if Luisa was home when a parent was home, then they were probably trying to sleep.  The kids were in class with 28 other children, and it was rare for teachers to make it through an entire year at their school. Keeping kids from dropping out was a major challenge, since the drop-out rate between 8th grade and high school graduation was about 60%.  To try and keep the kids in school, grades up, and budgets low, gym class (among other activities), had been cut to the bone.

 

This exacerbated one of the things that had seriously surprised Steve about the 21st century: The astronomical amount of sitting around people did, especially kids. He didn't see kids running around on the streets – either playing or working – and he'd noticed that schools didn't seem to have yards any more. The playground at PS 447 had been one of the first he'd seen in some time. When asked, Phil had explained that real estate in New York City was generally too expensive to spare space for playgrounds.  Tony'd grumbled that recess, along with gym had been 'sacrificed on the altar of increasing test scores at the expense of actually _teaching_ the kids.'

 

What that meant most immediately was that during a good week, group 8-B was lucky to get an hour a week where they actually did something in school that wasn't sitting at a desk or waiting for their turn with a ball. 

 

All of which added up to Daniel not having a lot of chances to practice bolting. 

 

Not that it mattered much when he was trying to out-run Steve.

 

Steve caught up to him as he was just heading around the corner to the exit, grabbed him by the collar, and tugged him into the stairwell. He propped the door ajar, pointed at the stairs. "Sit down, Daniel."

 

Daniel looked at the door, at Steve, and back at the door, and then sat down steps. He curled in on himself, arms crossed over his chest and stared at the floor.  "It was a stupid design." Daniel said to the linoleum.

 

"It was not a stupid design," Steve replied. "On its own, the fact that it's sectional makes it not stupid. We can swap the mud pot out with the hot springs."

 

"But then it's not right. Washburn hot springs are at the north-east end of the park, Old Faithfull's down in the central west, by the border with Idaho, and the hot springs might boil over and set off the Magic Smoke and…"  Daniel was talking more and more quickly.

 

"Daniel?" Steve interrupted him gently, "You know it's not a big deal to do a new round of labels, and to swap out Washburn for Grand Prismatic, right?"

 

Daniel nodded.

 

"So why don't you tell me what's really bothering you?"

 

Daniel snorted. "Like you care.  Or would be here without a court order."

 

Steve shrugged. "Probably not. But Tony was never required to be here: he came along for moral support."

 

"Moral support?" Daniel repeated, openly skeptical. "Who needs moral support for a bunch of losers like us?"

 

"I do," Steve said.

 

"You?" Daniel asked, his voice cracking at the end of the diphthong.

 

Steve shrugged again, and sat down on a step below Daniel, satisfied the kid wasn't going to bolt again. "I don't usually do small groups like yours. I'm okay with one kid, or with big groups, but smaller groups…" made him think of the Howling Commandos and how some of them weren't more than a couple years older than the kids in 8-B, "they kind of make me twitch."

 

Daniel took in Steve looking at the door, covered in orange gravy and black paint, safety glasses up on his head.  "That's why you broke us into pairs."  Steve nodded. "Why're you here? I mean, no offense, but I can't see what you'd do to _get_ a court order to come up here."

 

"Graffiti making."  Steve said, sheepish, looking down at his feet.

 

"No shi…?" Steve fixed him with a Cap look, and Daniel stopped himself. "Sheep?"

 

"Really. There's a school in Harlem that needs a crosswalk. Apparently they don't like it when you tell them so in paint."  Steve pulled out a handkerchief and started to wipe off more of the gook. "So that's my big secret."  He tilted his head at Daniel "How about you?"

 

"Huh?"

 

"You're first with the design ideas, and last to give yourself credit for anything. You beat yourself up today better than Joe Louis…"

 

"Who?"

 

Steve quickly readjusted his choice of references. "Boxer. Before Tyson's time."

 

"Oh."

 

"So," Steve said, leaning forward to look at Daniel directly, "what're you sitting on? What's got you so freaked out that you're trying to rabbit?"

 

Daniel shrugged. "I'm pretty sure you and Tony are going to quit. And if Ms. Razo calls my grandma and tells her that we've chased off _another_ volunteer…" His voice got quiet, and he went back to studying the linoleum, his shoulders up around his ears.

 

Steve took a page out of Bruce's book and waited patiently for Daniel to finish.

 

"…I think she might throw me out, too." The kid said, so quiet Steve doubted Daniel knew he'd spoken aloud.

 

Steve thought very carefully before saying anything, then quietly asked, "Why do you think she might do that, Daniel?"

 

"Why would she let me stay?" Steve waited again.  Daniel went on, "I'm a pain in the ass. She's got to buy extra stuff, and cook, and work, and she's old, and we don't know if my mother's dead, so there's no money from that, and…" He fell silent. "No one's ever wanted me to stay. Can't see why she would."

 

"Ah."  Steve thought a moment, then asked, "and she told you, 'be good, or else?'"

 

Daniel nodded.

 

"Okay.  I can see why you'd be worried."

 

Daniel cautiously looked at Steve and only saw acceptance: not pity, or disdain. Just an acknowledgement of what Daniel had told him.  "You can?"

 

Steve nodded. "If everyone else has left you or made you leave, makes sense you'll worry your grandmother will, too. Especially if you're not 'good.'"  He leaned on the balustrade under the handrail.  "Thing is, you've jumped ahead of yourself."

 

Daniel leaned against the wall. "How?"

 

"Well, you're jumping ahead to where Tony and I bail on you."

 

"Sure, you're planning on hanging out with the losers of 8-B…"

 

"And that's another card," Steve said, interrupting him, "go on."

 

Daniel rolled his eyes, and went on. "Fine, hanging out with _us_ once the court says you don't have to."

 

"You have a point. Or would, except that I finished what I had to do for the court on…" he looked at the date on his watch, "…Monday. And remember, Tony never had to be here at all. And while I _can't_ say if your grandmother's going to kick you out, I can tell you one thing."  He scratched at the orange goop under his nose, leaving more black streaks in his fingers' wake. "It takes a lot more than some fizzy orange gravy to drive Tony and me off. We're kind of stubborn that way."  He risked nudging Daniel gently on the arm. "So. Coming back in?"

 

Daniel looked carefully at Steve, and saw nothing but terrifying, sincere honesty and good nature in the blue eyes.  "I guess."

 

Steve gently thumped him on the back.  "Good man."

 

They walked back around the corner and the hall, and Daniel asked, "really graffiti?"

 

"Really graffiti. 'A crosswalk is needed here,' to be specific."

 

"Wow. They arrest people for that?"

 

"Yep."  Steve answered, pulling the classroom door open, and nudging Daniel ahead of him.

 

Tony was working on cleaning the sink, where orange gravy was trying to congeal at the drain, and keeping an ear on Luisa's and Evetta's examination of the display for damage to the electrics. Roberto was sitting at the parts table, counting the bolts in the compartmental hardware case.

 

"Luisa, can we just unplug before break apart the sections, or do we have to disconnect the wiring first?" Evetta asked.

 

"Probably better to disconnect the sections from one another first." Luisa answered. "I don't know how much wiring we have left. Roberto, how much wiring do we have left?"

 

Roberto looked at the case sections holding wire and answered, "two coils red, one coil black, one coil white, four of blue." He looked up as he answered and saw Daniel.  "Tony, may I…?"

 

"Go ahead, kid."  Tony said, most of the orange off of his face, but some clinging around the goatee.

 

Roberto stood up and came over to Daniel. "I'm sorry I called you a moron.  It was mean."

 

Daniel took a deep breath, and answered. "I accept. And it wasn't my best design effort."

 

"Tony says we can fix it."

 

"Okay."

 

Steve left the boys to it and headed to Tony for his instructions. "You get him sorted out, Tiger?"

 

"Yes. And you can stop with that any time."

 

"Yeah, I know." Tony grinned and looked up from the counter he was wiping down.  He gestured over his own moustache with his sponge. "Uhm.  You've kind of got paint…"

 

"Yeah?"  Steve grabbed another paper towel, wet it down, and started to scrub at the stuff in his hair.

 

"Yeah."

 

"You too, you know," Steve said, mimicking Tony's moustache gesture.

 

"I know," Tony said mournfully. "I can't get rid of the stuff. What am I supposed to do with this gunk, anyway?" he waved at the orange coating on his upper lip and chin.

 

Steve snickered, and swiped the wet towel across Tony's face, leaving black and orange streaks behind. "Like I said. Blow it out your moustache, Stark."

 

Tony blew him a raspberry and carried on with cleanup, listening to Group 8-B planning the reassembly of Yellowstone and rearrangement of their presentation.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The audience turnout for Shirley Chisholm Inaugural Eighth Grade Science and History Expo far exceeded what group 8-B had expected. Usually, for a group of 28, _maybe_ 17 parents would be able to come to the event.  Today saw 40 people in the audience chairs set up in the cafeteria, coffee on table in the back of the room, and a _camera crew_.

"Do we know these people?" Luisa asked Roberto as they slid into the back row.

"I think I know _some_ of them. Like Ms. Reinner and Ms. Johnson and Principal Estes in the front row," Roberto answered. "But whose parents are _those_ two?" he pointed at an average-looking man in a black suit with a slightly receding hairline sitting next to a chesty younger woman in a near identical suit. "Do we _have_ any white kids who've got two parents in our class?"

Evetta shrugged. "I think Will's got two parents, but I thought he said his step-dad was black."

"And they're over there," Luisa said, pointing. "So not the Kinnards. And is that guy in the front going the text through the whole _thing_? Geez, rude?" The dark-haired man in the front row tapped one last time on his phone and set it down, then leaned over and said something to the blond man in uniform sitting next to him.

Angela Reinner, the social studies teacher, stood up and started the 'Welcome, sit down, hold your applause until the end of the presentation' speech that was customary for such occasions.

8-B's Yellowstone and the National Park movement presentation was scheduled to run next-to-last. This meant that they were in the back row of the audience, along with 8-A (who were going last with a discussion of Krakatoa and the obligatory papier-mâché volcano), on the far right edge of the pie-wedge of adult audience members. Someone in the audience was setting off a fireworks display app from their phone against the cafeteria wall after each history report, getting the adults to say 'oooh' and 'ahhh' as well as applaud.

The fireworks were quieter than whoever was setting off the air horn after each science project. The first time it had been set off after the first presentation (spinning fibers, weaving cloth, the progression of the loom to the IBM card), the entire audience had jumped out of their seats, and the science projects got standing ovations.  No one in the back row could see who was setting off the fireworks 'displays' or the air-horns, but the resulting enthusiasm was spreading as 8-B and 8-A started to cheer on their classmates.

"They _did_ come, right?" Evetta whispered in the back row, fidgeting with the end of her braid.

"They said they would," Daniel answered. "And I think that's Steve in the front row."

"It could be Steve," Luisa said, "he's sitting next to your grandmother." Her eyes narrowed. "And that's my _mom_ on her other side. I thought she had to be at work."

"Maybe she took time off?" Evetta asked.

"She _never_ takes time off. Her manager's a total creep, she's afraid if she takes off, she'll get fired." Luisa answered.

"Sounds like my dad's boss," Roberto said, gloomily. "He swapped for the night shift so he'd get off at 8, but he'll never get here in time."

"He's in the second row behind Principal Estes." Daniel retorted, pointing.

"Seriously?" Roberto looked startled, then looked where Daniel pointed. "What the fuck?"

Mrs. Williams' audience neighbor stiffened, turned in his seat, looked pointedly at Roberto, pulled a card out of his breast coat pocket, and slid it back into the pocket.

Roberto turned crimson before slouching down in his seat. "It's Steve, all right. What's he doing in a uniform?" he whispered. "And if _he's_ there, where's Tony?"

Just then, one of the bolts on the working-model telegraph system slipped off its screw-post and clattered off the table. The dark-haired man sitting next to Steve caught the bolt as it rolled across the floor, stood up to hand it back to Group 8-C, and offered a multitool to help facilitate repairs.

"Okay, there's Tony. I guess he owns a suit." Evetta said. "He cleans up nice."

"Even if he's imitating Tony _Stark_." Luisa said. "Seriously, Converse and a suit? Trying too hard. Are we next?"

"After Che, Debora, and their skyscraper." Daniel answered.

*~*~*

8-B took the 'stage' after the elevator, cutaway model of early skyscrapers under construction and diorama of steel-smelting that lit up each stage in turn.

Steve and Tony went unashamedly wild with the fireworks and air horns when Angela Reinner, the social studies teacher, introduced their presentation on Yellowstone.

Evetta started their spiel on the history of Yellowstone in the Park System without looking at the audience, focusing on their history display, pointing at the photos that showed off Old Faithful, the lodges, the CCC camps and crews. She introduced Daniel's part on the history of tourism in the park, and when Daniel didn't start, she looked away from the display and looked where Daniel was staring.

Tony wasn't 'imitating' Tony Stark.

Tony _was_ Tony Stark.

And it _was_ Steve in the uniform. With Captain's bars on his shoulders.

Evetta only knew of one Captain that went around with Tony Stark and his Iron Man suit.

Which meant she'd snapped at _Captain America_ about the streaks he was leaving on the counter during clean-up last week.

Evetta decided that the time to panic was later, after they'd gotten their grades on this project. She kicked Daniel in the heel from behind the table, and after he came down to the floor from his jump, he started on the role of the National Parks in the development of tourism as an industry in the US.

The geothermal park features demonstration avoided a repetition of the gravy debacle of the previous week. All of 8-B sighed in relief when the cycle of features finished, they killed the power to the landscape, and handed off the presentation table to group 8-A and Krakatoa. The two ecosystems in soda bottles – one with a layer of charcoal ash glued to the surface, and one without – demonstrating the global impact of the eruption went over just as well. 8-A sat down next to 8-B on the far side of the staging area.

Principal Estes stood up and made the same closing remarks that she made at every assembly, group project presentation and spelling bee. "I'd like to thank you all for coming, and particularly credit Ms. Reinner and Ms. Johnson with setting up this joint project and presentation by the students." She waited for the polite applause that usually followed such phrases. "I'd also like to thank Mr. Stark for arranging for the camera crew so that parents who couldn't get here in person can still see their children's projects, and to thank Captain Rogers _especially_ for working with group 8-B at the South Bronx Community Center, and finally thank Julia Razo, as always, for her willingness to allow our faculty to inflict group projects of all sorts on her otherwise blameless after-school program." Tony set off his air horn application as an accent.  Ms. Estes fixed him with the look she usually reserved for male students wearing pants that failed to cover their underwear, or hats indoors. "Finally, I'm sure I don't have to remind the students that there's no school tomorrow because of the election, but just in case it slipped your minds, parents, there's no school tomorrow because of the election. This is why we're dismissing early today – so the poll workers can get in and set up, and with that," the bell for early dismissal went off, "thank you all again for coming, and I look forward to seeing you all at the Spring Science and History Expo."

Students and parents swarmed for each other, exchanging congratulations and commiserations about bits of projects failing or falling off, and headed for the exits as quickly as possible.  

Group 8-B, on the other hand, stalked over to the front row as one, turned on Steve and Tony, and glared at the superheroes in silence.

Steve handed Roberto the Chance card he'd pulled from his coat pocket earlier. 

Roberto took it, tore it into bits, and threw it back at Steve. "Were you planning on telling us who you were?" He demanded.

" _Are_ you who we think you are?"  Evetta asked.

"Yeah. We're who you think we are." Steve said, dusting card bits off of the uniform.

"So you lied?" Daniel asked, staring Steve straight in the eye.

"Daniel Isaiah Jones!" Mrs. Williams snapped.

Daniel flinched at his grandmother's reprimand, but didn't break his gaze. 

"Not like you asked us our last names, kid." Tony retorted.

"And if we had?" Luisa asked, arms crossed over her chest.

"I'll worry about it when I go careening into that alternate timeline." Tony answered. "You didn't ask, we didn't tell. This is an example of why that policy was a really, _really_ bad idea."

"Anthony…" Steve warned.

"It _was_ a really, really bad idea." Evetta's mother said defensively, coming around behind her daughter. "Our Raúl's Antonio had to leave the Marines when he met Raúl, and he really had wanted to go career." She nudged Evetta a bit to get her to stand up straight.

"So we're just charity projects?" Roberto asked, still prickly.

The right side of Tony's mouth twisted up. "Can't speak for Cap here, but I haven't had as much fun with gravy and seltzer in years."

"He really hasn't," the suited woman (she'd introduced herself as 'Caroline, Steve's lawyer') said. "And the pictures going viral in e-mail pretty well crashed the office's computers."

"Really?" Luisa asked.

"Really." Caroline answered. She her tablet out of her briefcase, opened the e-mail, and showed the pictures to Luisa.

The young girl looked at the picture of Steve covered in orange goop. "No one got any of T… of Mr. Stark?"

"Keep calling me Tony, Luisa, it's better than what a lot of people have said." Tony called over, still staring at Roberto.

"Steve got some of Tony." Caroline reassured Luisa, and tapped over to the pictures.

"Oh my god, look at it all stuck in his _hair_ ," Luisa's mother said.

Phil was at the cafeteria hall door, signing for the pizzas and sodas Tony had ordered, and Angela Reinner and Nancy Johnson (the science teacher) were setting them out on the table where the coffee had been.  Principal Estes came over to them looking like Christmas had come early, but sounded like Santa had only brought her coal and willow switches. "Nancy," she began, "you didn't tell me that 8-B was being mentored by Mr. Stark!"

"I actually didn't know, Phyllis." Nancy said, looking at Julia Razo and mouthing 'help me!' at her. "Julia had mentioned that they had new mentors, but didn't mention any names."

"You didn't ask," Julia said, cracking open a can of Coke.

"Not usually any point," Angela said. "Most of the volunteers you get are gone by the end of the month."

"True. But in this case, I also didn't want to chance them being run off." Julia pulled recyclable, Styrofoam plates out of the paper bag she'd brought and set next to Tony's briefcase in the back of the room.

Tony left Steve to manage the teenaged, self-righteous anger of 8-B and came over to grab pizza before it was inhaled by the four 13 year-olds. "And it was partly us," he said. "We're trying to keep a somewhat low profile. But Cap ran into some trouble, and our hot-shot lawyer couldn't get him off entirely, so off he went. Ms. Razo promptly threw us to the wolves."

"Tony just went along for the ride." The nondescript man said.

"You know how I love an adrenaline rush, G-man." Tony said with a grin.

"Then Steve couldn't stop talking about how great the kids' project was. I'm a National Park junkie, so I didn't want to miss out on the demonstration. Phil Coulson," he introduced himself.

"My boss," Caroline-Steve's-Lawyer added. "I'm Caroline Lakehurst, the hot-shot lawyer whose client wouldn't let her push for dismissal of all the charges." She said over the table to Tony. "And I'm so sorry, Ms. Reinner, I should have called in on Friday to warn you about the invasion. I've got personal experience with how overwhelming it can be."

"I take it you haven't checked your e-mail with our RSVPs?" Phil asked.

Angela shook her head. "I didn't get a chance this morning."

Nancy came back and to Angela's rescue. "Wouldn't help. Someone walked off with our co-ax cables over the weekend, and Blue Ridge Combined hasn't gotten here yet. And mobile phone coverage here is… What did you call it, Angela?"

"Pox-infested." Angela replied. Both women missed how Tony's eyes narrowed when the theft was mentioned.

"Sorry?" Phil asked.

"Spotty, Phil," Steve said, having extricated himself from the kids, who were setting up a table for them all to eat at. "I just wanted to apologize again for the… well, chaos."

"Please don't apologize." Nancy reassured him. "But… do you mind if I ask? I need something to use against my brother in our continuing 'Relative Greatness of Superheroes' debate at Thanksgiving later this month."

Steve blushed. "You're really not going to believe me."

"I teach 8th grade, Captain: believe me, I know from unbelievable explanations."

"The best one," Angela said, "was the time she had to tell them that they couldn't have their lab reports back because her dog ate their homework."

Steve laughed. "Okay, fine, I give. Graffiti making, over at PS 447 in Harlem."

"You tagged a school?" Angela asked, disbelieving. "What'd you write, 'Kilroy was here?'"

Steve grinned and shrugged. "Appropriate, but no. 'Crosswalk needed here.'" He stripped off and hung up his uniform coat before appropriating a pizza and a pair of sodas. He put one of the cans in Tony's spare hand as the shorter man tapped at his cell phone.

"On 106th street?" Nancy asked. "Oh, God, they really _do_ need one there. Is there any chance you could do one for us? We could really, really use it over at Grant and 168 th…"

"Nancy!" Principal Estes sounded appalled at the suggestion.

"Come off it, Phyllis you know it's true." Angela retorted. "Remember what happened to Kimber Cotton last year? The poor kid _still_ flinches every time she has to cross a street, and she was _in_ the space where the crosswalk was before fading out."

"The district assures me that appropriate repairs will be made shortly." Phyllis said primly. "Which, granted, means that we'll see pork in the treetops before it happens, but we still shouldn't ask Captain America to commit a crime for us."

"Actually," Caroline offered, "if the borough approves the work, then it's not actually graffiti."

"And _then_ it adds value to the school property." Angela offered. 

"'Art by Steve Rogers' certainly ought to have some positive side-effects," Nancy said.

"Or would make the theft problems worse." Phyllis answered.  "Right now, when they take the cable, at least we've still got _walls_.  I can just see someone making off with the bricks if they think a world-famous artist has had their hands on them." She looked at her watch. "Mr. Coulson, you'll let me know when you're finished in here?"

"Of course, Principal Estes. Thank you again for letting us use the room."

"No problem." Phyllis took two slices of supreme, a can of Diet Coke, "Nancy, Angela, see you in the gym." She headed out to her office.

Angela and Nancy soon followed with their own slices, since the meeting in the gym was a mandatory meeting for all school faculty and staff.

"Ready for the onslaught?" Julia asked, checking that the grown-ups had secured food for themselves. Caroline and Phil nodded, and got clear of the table. Julia stepped back and called, "Guys, pizza!"

 

"There are only four of them," Caroline said a few minutes later. "How come it looks like there are four hundred?"

"Law of Locust Transubstantiation of Teenagers," Julia said. "Under normal circumstances, yes. There are only four. Put food in front of them, say the magic words 'hocus pocus,' and hey, presto, hordes of monsters eating everything in their path." She sat down at the table next to Caroline.

"Ah. All becomes clear." Caroline applied a knife and fork to her slice. "I promise I'm not usually this dorky, but the arithmetic of me, suits and food always seems to add up to 'dry cleaning,' and I've got paperwork for the parents for tomorrow."

"Yeah – what's going on with that? Tony just said he had something planned?"

"Field trip." Phil answered. "He's gotten them an inside tour of the _Enterprise_ and _Intrepid_."

"Then Stark Tower for the usual after-school stuff." Caroline said. "We brought permission slips."

"Also, souvenirs for the project." Phil added.

"Oh?" Julia asked.

"Bracelets with the group ID and members' names engraved on them." Phil answered.

After the pizza had been demolished, Steve obligingly crushed all the soda cans with his bare hands and challenged the kids to a corn-hole contest with the recycling bin, while Caroline passed out the permission slips for the field trip.  In the fine print that she knew full well that the parents never read was a paragraph granting SHIELD permission to issue panic buttons and GPS trackers to their children.

"So, you're taking them to Manhattan for the day?" Mrs. Cavazos asked. "Do they meet there, or here, or…?"

"We'll take care of transportation," Phil said. "Pick-up at 8:30 at the Community Center, we'll get them back to their homes at the end of the day."

*~*~*

Although Natasha and Clint had allowed Caroline the freedom of the city again, they rode back to the West Side in an SUV with the SHIELD-employed camera crew.

Caroline checked the forms for the 'field trip' over and stuck them in one of her ubiquitous Redwelds that she'd preemptively labeled 'SHIELD Starting Class of 2021 – Group 8-B,' and tucked it into her briefcase tote.

"We get all their paperwork in order?" Phil asked Caroline on the way back to the office.

"All of _theirs_ , yes." Caroline said, pulling out and opening her tablet. "The Captain, on the other hand, is shedding paperwork the way the badgers are blowing coat for winter."

"Oh?"

"I just got last quarter's reports from his accountant's New York minions this morning." Caroline said, frowning at the tablet.

"It's November. Didn't the quarter end in September?" Phil opened his own tablet to see what had exploded on to his desk while they were in the Bronx.

"It did." She switched applications, looked at data, and switched back.

"And you're only now getting the quarterly reports?" Phil was pretty sure he'd gotten his 401-k's quarterly statement well before the 15th.

"Correct." She repeated the 'switch-check-switch' procedure.

"I'm sensing a discrepancy here."

"Your awareness of aberrations is, as always, spot on, Mr. Coulson." Caroline again switched applications, looked at data, and switched back.

"Something wrong, Ms. Lakehurst?" Like the rest of Legal, Caroline chose her words carefully. If she was getting assonant, then she was turning to figures of speech to keep herself from snapping.

"I'd just be really, really happy if Mr. Stark would get his development people to finish the multi-window system for the tablets." She sighed, squinched her eyes shut for a moment, blinked a couple of times, and looked up. "Sorry. I'm also beginning to wish I'd done more tax law."

"Any reason you can't?" Phil looked back to his own tablet and started clearing e-mails.

"Doesn't really fit what HR thinks of as qualifying for necessary continuing education for the Avengers' lawyer." Caroline replied. "They keep steering me towards IP, Asgard and criminal procedure. Which is all useful stuff, and pretty critical to the job, but Steve's finances are messed up enough to make hoarders look organized."

"Don't you have an assistant to get those sorted?"

Caroline waved her hand in a 'maybe' motion. "Sort of? Legal-Dave's split between me, Jordan-the-intellectual-property and now former ADA Alan Gates-the-blessed-patron-of-the-search-warrant and the proto-lawyers…"

"The who?"

"Kianna and Hamilton?  The field trainees and junior agents keep asking if running into them satisfies the 'meet the undead' square on the bingo card?"

Phil thought for a moment, then nodded. "The zombies on 10. Got it. Why _do_ they look like they've spent six days in interrogation?"

"They're sitting the Federal bar next week." Caroline explained.

"Ah. Weren't they doing a lot of your admin?"

"After we lost Sylvia and Ray because of imminent fear of threats posed to their cats by continuing working at SHIELD and sent Kim back to reception, yes."

"Even after you hijacked Matthias."

"Correct."

"So you're doing your own."

"Someone's got to do it." Caroline answered. "And, like taking on Blue Cross, in Steve's case, it really does have to be legal."

Phil nodded, then tapped an e-mail to Col. Fury, Dep. Dir. Hill and Robbie Burr, interim legal head, suggesting that the next addition to the Avengers' support team should probably be administrative. He was beginning to sense that hyper-focusing on the upper end of the team – legal, research and development, weapons, aerospace, government liaison – was false economy. There was no point in building a new mountain to take to Mohammed if no one had filed for the oversize load permits.

"Good luck?" he offered.

"Gods know I need it," Caroline muttered.

**Tuesday, the Stark Tower**

 

When 8-B met the badgers in the space formerly designated for Jane Foster's lab, Luisa had actually squeaked.

"Oh my God, they're so CUTE!!!!" Her voice had jumped three octaves over her spontaneous exclamation. The only resemblance the giggling girl bore to the teenager Steve and Tony had met weeks earlier was the over-sized t-shirts she still wore.  

"Would you care to make their acquaintance, Miss Luisa?" Thor said. "They are quite friendly."

"Is it…" Luisa looked at Bruce, fidgeting with the new silver ID bracelet that Tony'd handed out as 'souvenirs' Monday on her left wrist. "Would it be okay, Dr. Banner?"

"Sure," Bruce answered with a smile. "Like Mr. Odinson said, they're very friendly. And it's good for them to meet new people." And Bruce thought that Luisa looked like she could use some time with a badger purring in her lap. "Here, I'll open the outer doors for you. Wait until they close and that light," he pointed at the stoplight next to the inner door "turns green before you open the inner door, okay? Then all you have to do is sit down – they're housebroken – and ignore them and they'll be in your lap in a couple of minutes."

Luisa nodded seriously, went into the outer chamber, closed the door behind her, and went into the main enclosure. She looked around, found the stadium seat Steve had left in the habitat for human comfort, sat down, and tucked her t-shirt around her. "This okay?"

"Fine, Miss Luisa." Thor reassured her.  "Have you never played with an animal before?"

Luisa shook her head. "No one's at home enough to take care of a dog and my mom's allergic to cats."

Thor looked at Bruce, appalled. Bruce shrugged. It wasn't that unusual a situation in the inner cities.

Pointy, meanwhile, never able to resist investigating the new, came over and gently tugged at her t-shirt, tapping on the floor.

The software translated for him. "Hi, I'm called Pointy. What's your name?"

"They _TALK_?" Luisa squeaked again.

Bruce chuckled. "Well, sort of. They're a new species of badger, and they've learned to communicate with the tapping. Steve said one of your classmate's projects was about the telegraph?" Luisa nodded, cautiously petting Pointy. "We've taught them Morse code, and have software that translates their tapping into English."

"Neat," she said. "Hi, Pointy, I'm Luisa."

Pointy tapped back. "Hi, Luisa. Would you scratch my ears, please?"

Luisa giggled again and complied. "Sure."  Badgers were soon coming out of the Habitrail tubes set into the walls and cuddling up with the teen.

Bruce smiled and went back to his data, e-mailing a photo Jarvis had just captured of Luisa to the whole team.

What he got back from Tony was a picture Daniel up to his elbows in the base of BirdFish: a smaller, multi-terrain capable robotic arm with a limited AI designed specifically for the living quarters of the Tower.  Popcorn shells from movie night had gotten caught in the hinges of the treads' chain and Clint had found him crawling in a circle around the jammed train that morning. Two streaks of red grease were smeared over the upper lip of Daniel's face-splitting grin.

 

**Wednesday**

Caroline opened one of ten boxes on the table in Legal's conference room the next morning while Tony and Steve recapped the previous afternoon, spreading out a half-dozen files on the table's surface.

Tony said, "So three hours later…"

"When we're trying to get everyone assembled to put them into the cars," Steve added.

"It finally occurs to us to ask where Roberto and Evetta are." Tony concluded.

"The answer being 'the climbing wall,'" Steve said, "where Roberto kept going up the stairs to the top to rappel off, and Evetta was happily – what did Clint call it when you're just climbing, not following a particular route?"

"Rainbowing," Caroline answered without looking up from the stack of files she was rifling through.

Both men looked at her as if she'd grown a third arm.

When neither man continued their narration she looked up. "Well? Evetta was rainbowing…"

"I just wouldn't have figured you for a climber," Steve said.

"Kind of having difficulty seeing you in a climbing shoes and… oh, spandex. And a running top. Wait, not having any difficulty at all…" Tony mused, considering Caroline's curves and the framing aspects of a climbing harness.

Caroline looked at Tony over the open file in her hand. "I'm beginning to see why Ms. Potts' suggested accessories for any meeting with you included duct tape. Yes. I climb. Not often, but I do. I can also reliably frame a structure, change a diaper, pitch manure, cook, act alone, and when called for, cooperate."

"What, no sonnet writing?" Tony retorted.

"I prefer haiku." Caroline closed the file, handed it to Tony, and another to Steve. "And I thought I was good at planning invasions, but after this weekend's Hnefatafl marathon, I'm revising that position. So. The quarterlies." She pushed aside a box so she could sit down _and_ make eye contact with Steve and Tony at the same time and pulled a two more files toward her.

"This is the first time we've done this since I've come on board to the Initiative, and the first time chance we've had to actually discuss your non-criminal legal needs, Steve, about which you and Tony rather drastically disagree."

"I'm just not convinced I _have_ that many."

"Yeah, about that." Caroline opened the top file. "Remember how you were all panicked about your bail money and telling me how you couldn't afford it?"

"Yes…" Steve said slowly.

"And do you recall my answer?"

Steve thought, then said, "Yes."

"Good client! Have a cookie." She grinned widely and passed him a snickerdoodle from the plate in the middle of the table. "Now, what was my answer?"

Steve smiled and took a bite of the cookie, chewing slowly and swallowing before answering, "'The cash balance in my savings account alone could stand the hit.'"

"Yeah. Take a look at the summaries of your accounts. Set the cookie aside, first."

The first summary page of the file showed eleven savings accounts, ten with balances of $250,000 each: the eleventh was sitting with nearly $195,000. The next page showed ownership of Treasury Bills comparing face values and market values and maturity dates.

Then there was the summary of the stock portfolio. This one went on for several pages.

Steve looked at the sheets of numbers in front of him, eyes widening at the number of commas in each figure.  He looked back up at Caroline, and then at Tony. He took a deep breath to get control of himself and said, "I don't understand."

Tony grinned. "What's not to understand, Cap? You. Rich. Second biggest shareholder in Stark Industries after me.  Nice balance sheet, good diversity of assets, maybe a little conservative, but then that was Dad for you."  He shrugged. "There's plenty liquid, a good portion of it's long term."

Caroline continued, "When the 2011 T-bills paid out, Adam Jackson had just retired from Kirkland, Kirkland, Abraham and Smith, so they weren't automatically reinvested."

"Which means you've got an extra 650 k sitting in savings accounts, doing nothing." Tony said.

"Losing money, actually, because it's earning a whopping 1.25% a year, and inflation is around 2.5%," Caroline said.

"Yeah, you might want to do something about that." Tony said. "Maybe buy a house or two? Real estate's cheap right now, you could get a block of Manhattan with that kind of down payment…"

Steve just stared at the numbers, oblivious to Caroline and Tony's conversation. "Steve?" Caroline said, trying to get his attention. He didn't even shift in his seat.

She held her hand up to tell Tony to back off a little.  "Steve." Steve looked up, utterly lost. "Steve, how did you manage your wages when you worked for the WPA? During the war?"

"You got your check, you cashed it, or if you had a bank you could actually trust, you deposited it." Steve looked at the balance sheets, with the stock ownership figures listed. "I guess…" he looked at Tony, "did Howard just keep depositing my paychecks?"

"He never stopped looking for you," Tony answered with a shrug. "And you made him your executor, so he kept after the Army to _keep_ paying you.  MIA is not the same as KIA, and you went missing while in combat. Whenever Dad was down in DC, he made sure that the Pentagon understood that their discount was partially dependent on them continuing to pay you. There are people down there in payroll still having flashbacks."

"Add in the Medal of Honor," Caroline said, looking at her copy of the sheets, "and the war bonds… and my, you did, really buy those, didn't you."

"Kind of hard not to," Steve answered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Mostly because it was my friends over there, but also, well, I was in the propaganda business."

"I've seen your work for the WPA. You were in the propaganda business well before Project Rebirth, and yet your personal effects weren't chock full of Socialist Realism." Tony commented.

"We've all seen his work." Caroline said. "Which is what the boxes are about."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. It's up next, after we've finished this."

"Do I need to be here for this?" Steve asked plaintively.

"Sorry, Steve." Tony went on. "But yeah, it's going to change some things."

"Your tax preparation bill, for one," Caroline offered. "And the people coming out of the woodwork."

"Elves ate my husband, Captain America fathered my two-headed bison." Tony offered.

"Steve Rogers went to World War 2 and only mentioned my grandfather once in the _War Journals_." Tony's head turned sharply toward Caroline, who didn't notice.  "And you probably heard my wail last week when I was still crashing in your Tower and brought a box back from the office?"

"Which one was this?" Steve asked.

"'Oh, God, it's all in his name. No one's even bothered to put together a fracking S-Corp or LLC!'"

"Oh, that. Yes, we heard. Jarvis suggested you might be in need of medical assistance." Steve smiled.

"I did end up hitting the bottle of Johnny Walker Red."

Tony made a face, but his gaze was on the boxes beyond Caroline. "Yeuuuugh. I've got perfectly _good_ single-malt, you know."

Caroline waved her hand at Tony in a shoo-ing motion. "Yeah, but there's no point in drinking it if you're just trying to get something out of your skull so you can sleep."

"Point." Tony said, tapping his tablet while looking at the boxes, still. "Now, what were you saying about woodwork?"

"Hang on, Tony." Caroline said, still looking at Steve. "Before we move on to the last item, I want you to start thinking about what you want to do with this. With the T-bills maturing at the end of next month, your net worth comes up to 35 million," Steve's eyes bugged out, and she pulled a water glass over before filling it and passing it to him. "And that gives you a _lot_ of options for the kind of work you want to see accomplished and the kinds of groups you want to support. At the _very_ least it can eliminate the worry you had about 8-B and the looming tuition bills for high school." She tapped the file. "Last page is your homework. I want you to identify ten things you'd like to see fixed. You've got a week. Get as much help as you like."

Steve nodded, sipping the water gratefully. "Yes ma'am."

"Excellent. Now." She looked at Tony. "Go for it."

"Say that again."

"'Go for it?' I'm surprised, Tony, a man of your reputation…"

"Not now, Lakehurst," Tony snapped, interrupting, turning his gaze to the tablet. "The other."

Caroline's evil smile emerged. "Steve Rogers went to World War 2 and only mentioned my grandfather once in the _War Journals_."

"That's what I thought you said." Tony found what he was looking for on the tablet and snapped it closed. "Go on."

" _War Journals_?" Steve asked, now thoroughly confused.

Caroline set her elbow on the table, put her thumb and finger to her temple, and looked at Tony. "You see where this is going, don't you."

"I think so. Walk me through it anyway: I'm not a lawyer." Tony started set the tablet aside and started flipping through the pages in the file.  "They're… not in here?"

"No. They're not." Caroline answered.

"Guys, again, do I have to be here, or would you two prefer to be alone?" Steve asked.

"Sorry, Steve." Caroline tapped the closed file in front of her. "This is what had me telling Dave to pull all of your estate's files and put them in my office after our meeting with the DA. Because I really thought Adam Jackson was better than this."

"Adam Jackson?" Steve asked.

"The lawyer Howard Stark hired to manage your estate. He was the lead partner in the tax and estate practice at Kirkland and Kirkland from about 1940 to…" she thought for a moment.

"1960." Tony answered. "Then it got handed off to Mason Padgett? Who was… a little unimaginative."

"A _little_?" Caroline snorted. "Tony, he neglected to secure the royalties for the five-year _New York Times_ bestseller that HIS CLIENT WROTE.  I mean, the WPA work – nothing to be done," she said, turning to Steve. "You signed over the rights to those when you accepted the job. But the _Journals_? How the hell did he miss that?"

Steve put the file down and a hand up. "Hang on. Back up. And hand me one of your legal pads." Caroline obliged, and threw in a pen. "What journals?" Steve asked.

"Yours, Steve." She had clearly gotten her anger at her predecessors out of her system already. Steve made a note to take a look at how long she'd logged in the range. "The journals you kept throughout the USO and war bond campaigns, and through the invasion of Europe."

"My journals?" Steve still sounded confused, taking notes, "you mean the sketchbooks?"

"Yep.  Especially since you wrote down what you saw, who you talked to, who said what, what happened where and when, and then put in visual impressions." Tony said.

"It's – hell, Ken Burns hired that guy to read from them for _The War_ , you know the one, short, kind of funny looking…"  Caroline answered. "It's pretty much mandatory reading for every high school student in the country. That, _All Quiet on the Western Front_ , the _Diary of Anne Frank_ and _Night_." 

"The journals are a really big part of why you're so popular." Tony added, closing his copy of the financial summaries.

"Not," Caroline muttered, "that you ever _weren't_ going to be. I mean, forget Errol Flynn." She smiled, saw Steve blush, and said. "Sorry. But it's the truth. And there was this grouping of photos in the 1994 edition that came out on the 50 th anniversary of D-Day…." She pulled out her tablet, did a quick Google-image search, tapped, and flipped it around. "This set. It made you… approachable. Everyone knew these." She pointed at the standard personnel file head-shot paired with a candid from the field of Steve leaning over a jeep with a map and compass with the caption, 'Capt. Rogers, planning an assault, Europe, 1944.' "These were in Life's Millenium edition. Show them anywhere – and I do mean _anywhere_ – and people will say 'Captain America.'  But these…" she pointed at the shot of Steve and his mother from his First Communion, and one of him and Bucky, "these were new. I don't know where they got the family photos?" she looked at Tony in question.

Tony shook his head and shrugged. "Me neither.  But it's a hell of a lot easier to identify with a kid from Brooklyn who joins the Army than a billionaire who finished MIT when he was 17." He finished ruefully.

Caroline didn't miss how Steve gently bumped Tony in the ribs, still taking notes. Tony glanced at Steve, and smiled a little. She took the tablet back and went looking for the Amazon.com sales ranking of the _War Journals_. "Anyway ever since 1947 or eight, the _War Journals_ have been in the top 20, or at the lowest, 30 bestselling books in the history division. Right now, Amazon has them at… number nine. And yet," she chortled, "they're not available on Kindle. I _can't imagine_ why."

"Uhm?" Steve asked.

"Your reappearance."  Her smile got bloodthirsty. "Even if they don't know you've got these kind of resources to deploy against them," she put her hand on the financial file, "they know that your team-mate _certainly_ does." She nodded toward Tony. "And the last time they tried that stunt, they got scorched. Badly."

Steve looked at Tony for an explanation: he obliged. "They ignored a cease and desist order when they sold a coffee-table book combining photos of me and Iron Man – and didn't bother to even ask if I was okay with it. Much less negotiate the publication rights."

"It ended up costing them about 10 million in lawyers' fees alone.  Then they had to pay _Tony's_ lawyers, because when Amazon lost, the fees were awarded as part of the damages. And then there were the punitive damages. Did you end up accepting the offer of stock-in-lieu?"

Tony nodded and grinned. "Better long-term plan than putting them out of business. Plus, free shipping, forever."

"Remind me to not get sued by him." Steve said.

"I always advise people to avoid getting sued." Caroline answered. "This is advice the publishing industry would have been wise to seek – and heed. And this is what we mainly need to talk about today." She leaned forward in her seat, hands on the table. "What do you want me to do about the publishers?"

Steve smiled. "You want to work on your invasion planning skills. What are the options?"

"First, frontal assault: we sue them. All of them. Probably means you'll need outside counsel to take care of it for you, because this is easily about a year's worth of 400 hour-weeks."

"Who runs the operations?" Steve asked, actually sketching out a battle plan around a sketch he'd done of a book. It had his shield on its cover.

"Ultimately, you." Caroline answered, wagging her hand maybe. "In a more concrete way than the President runs a war, but not quite as hands-on as, say, General Schwartzkopf."

Steve thought for a minute "Which war…"

"Desert Storm." Tony answered. "So, really, Chairman of Joint Chiefs?"

"More like Supreme Commander of NATO." Caroline said, continuing on to Steve, "You say when and where the invasion's happening, we tell you what we want to get it done, you tell us we can't have what we want, we come back with what we need, usual schtick."

"Got it." Steve scribbled, labeled the plan 'Sea Gate.' "Second?"

"A more… Canadian sneak attack. Polite letter saying 'we'd like to sit down to discuss arrangements to pay the last 65 years' of royalties,' and when they don't reply, accumulate stock holdings until you say 'hi, you're putting this on the board's agenda and dealing with this, or I'm moving for a vote of no confidence at the next shareholder meeting and throwing you out.' You end up owning a few publishing houses."

Steve grimaced a little, labeled the plan 'Coney Island,' and said, "Not quite as attractive."

"Which brings us to third. Start with the polite letter. Amp up to full suit. Still going to require…" She broke off to think: Steve could see her doing math in her head. "Start with a full squad, by the time it's to trial, call it a small platoon of lawyers. By the time it goes global – and we're talking multiple suits, because copyright law varies so much around the world – you might need a full company."

"With support?" Steve was scribbling numbers.

"Batallion."

Steve sat back, fidgeting with the pencil. "How much?"

"Eighty thousand a week to start, plus experts. If they don't settle, if it goes to a full platoon, if it goes to trial? Then you're talking five hundred thousand a week. Easily."

"You're optimistic about the lawyers' rates," Tony warned.

"We'll be able to negotiate the firms' hourly down by offering a contingency payout as part of the fee." Caroline countered. "We're taking on publishing, not Disney, not tobacco. Now if they hadn't gone with Ambrose for _Band of Brothers_ , then we'd be taking on HBO and Spielberg. And then, bluntly," she looked at Steve, "I'd tell you to marry him," she pointed at Tony, "and let him deal with it."

"Do we need to do anything immediately?" Tony asked.

"He's still alive. Even if he weren't…" Caroline smiled. "Well. Copyright lasts to the end of the lifetime of the author plus 70 years. Which gives us…"

"Until 2015." Steve concluded with a nod, finishing his notes and labeling the third option 'Brighton Beach.' "Write up the proposals, e-mail them to me."

"Yessir." Caroline scratched the item off of her agenda. "And that's what I've got for today. You want to look at the accounts and transactions for the estate?" She opened her tablet to note the Captain's marching orders to her.

"Anything I'm actually going to understand in it?" Steve asked.

"Probably not."

"Anything I _need_ to read, or that I _ought_ to read?"

"Not that I've seen yet. But I'm only up to 1954 – ask me again when I get back from Virginia and am into the '60s."

"Works."

Tony looked at Caroline and asked, "Coulson's letting you take your show on the road?"

"Not just mine, but Bruce's, too. We've got some issues we need to take up with the Ombudsman of Culver University concerning the University's institutional review board's research approval process, specifically about control of datasets and biological samples. And apparently," she said, looking at her schedule on the tablet. "I have a lunch scheduled with the author of _Foster v. US_."

"Who?" Steve asked.

Caroline's expression turned amused. "One Darcy Lewis, second-semester senior. Graduating in December."

Tony's eyebrows rose. "Take rubber body armor. The chick packs a taser."

"Oooh, Sparky McSparkerson. Awesome. Mr. Stark? Captain?" Caroline stood up (Steve scrambled to his feet as she did so, Tony quickly following) and picked up her folder and tablet. "Thanks for your time today.  I'll see you in a week if not sooner."

"Sooner," Steve said, "Veteran's fund drive is this weekend, remember?"

"Nope. Thank you." Caroline stole her pen back from Steve and wrote it on the back of her hand. "See you Saturday, then. Leave the boxes, I'll get Dave to move them for me."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usual disclaimer applies: This story is based on characters created by Stan Lee et al, and that are currently in circulation in print and film through Marvel Comics, among others. No money is being made by the author from this story, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. All rights remain the owners'.


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